“This” Is Not Good.

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

I write Windows software for a living and as a hobby.  When Windows 8 came out and they introduced the new Metro/Modern app paradigm, I was unconvinced.  I never investigated why I felt that way, but I felt so strongly about it that I didn’t even want to invest the time to figure it out.

I’ve recently had another burst of motivation to get certified in my programming skills, and the training I’ve been studying involves these new-style apps.  For a while, I was interested, but then as I saw and learned more, I got less interested.

I think the same reason I dislike the modern apps is the same reason I don’t use any apps on my phone.  And that’s not surprising since they are essentially the same thing.  The problem I have with the apps is they operate in a singular focus at all times.  You start at a high level, you dive in, then you back out and do it again.  The bottom line is, this will not work for nearly all business applications and it won’t work for many productivity applications.

The official training is as much marketing as it is instructional, and I understand that.  As a developer, you have to sell the reasons for creating an application in a certain way.  One of the marketing themes is that the user should be “immersed” in the application.  There should be no chrome and no distractions.  I don’t see how this squares up with business data, which is primarily a collection of relations.

In a business app, you can have an “Order”.  But that order has a related customer and products.  That customer has a related company and contacts and previous purchases, and each of those products has related inventory, cost information, purchase history, and so on.  How can you “immerse” the user in an “Order”?  If the user then wants to see the customer information, now you have to immerse the user in a “Customer”, despite the context that the focus is still an Order and you are viewing the Customer in the context of that Order.  Ditto with viewing any Product Details.

And I think that’s the part that bothers me to the point that I can’t even begin to want to understand it.  A Modern app feels like, “You are working on this. *click* Now you are working on this.  Do not think about what you were working on, this is what you are working on.”  In fact, the immediacy of “this” sums up my dislike of Modern apps.

When Windows 10 was previewed, I was excited that Modern apps could be run in windows instead of full-screen.  It didn’t dawn on me at the time that windowed Modern apps didn’t fix the root problem that the application itself was single-screen.  Even if you think about a lowly web application, even they can open pop-up windows.  And by that, I mean real windows, not just frames in the main window.

It all just feels like trying to sell a limitation as “the best way”.  We can’t do something that way, but that’s not important, because this is the best way to do it.  It’s similar to a situation I have at work on the application I help write.  The user can’t have more than one screen open at a time because of the way the form controls talk to the parent form.  It doesn’t have to be that way, but the early developers didn’t know how to do it correctly, so this limitation was created.  Now it’s considered best for the user to only be able to have one screen open at a time.

Get More

Posted by on March 27, 2015 No comments

Many months ago, I had come across a book, The Four Hour Work Week, and I was quite unimpressed by it and its author.  Recently, a blogger that I follow read the book and was advocating for it.  Not for the processes in the book exactly, but more along the line of “getting your due.”

My personal employment situation is different than both the Four Hour author and this blogger.  I work for a company and I develop and maintain their internal software.  I’m not a consultant, so the blog author’s primary arguments about “you are paid $50/hr, but your employer gets paid $150-$300/hr for the work you do” don’t resonate with me.  Even so, I have held those jobs in the past, so I know what it’s about.

I know myself well enough to say, I’m not cut out for running a business.  I know because I’ve tried.  There’s a lot involved.  The blogger says that for the difference in what you get made vs what you could potentially make, you could hire the people that can make it happen for you.  Not a salesperson?  Hire one.  Not an accountant?  Hire one.  And I guess you could keep justifying that a lot.  After all you’re making 3-6x what you were making before.

At least you’d be making that much if you were perpetually busy.  Scott Adams recent book has a very wise observation that there is an upper bound on what you can make if your income is dependent on your labor.  And that’s the upper bound.  There is no lower bound. And when you start from scratch, you don’t have the luxury of a backlog of work and pay.

Bottom line is you have to be of the entrepreneur mold.  And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with not being of that type.  You should still be able to be successful by being the best you can be in your field.

With that position – my position – stated, I must say that I believe the teachings of the “four hour work week” are detrimental for young workers.  If you find this works for you, then you are already that type of person.  I don’t believe just anyone can become “that person”.  I know I couldn’t live with myself like that.  I’ve also learned in my time that I don’t want to be associated with people like that.

Which then brings me back to my inner conflict with a blogger I enjoy reading.  I guess I need to wish him well, because everyone has to find their own way.  My way has worked well for me.  Could I have more?  Probably.  Would I also have more stress in my life?  Probably.  Would I trade more money for more stress?  Absolutely not.

Triangulating Everything

Posted by on March 25, 2015 No comments

Today, I drove to lunch taking a back road to avoid the usual stress of traffic and I got to thinking about the tradeoff triangle, you know, Good/Fast/Cheap – pick two.  But that didn’t really make sense for what I was doing.  I was trading time for a better driving experience.  It was something more like Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable. 

I thought I was on to something there.  I tried applying it to some other modern conveniences.  I have someone wash my car every few weeks.  That costs a little, but it also frees up more time for me to do what I want.  That fits.

In fact, there’s a whole lifestyle philosophy that promotes that when you get to a certain level of net worth or earning potential, you need to stop doing some things because it isn’t worth your time (in a somewhat literal sense).  A breakdown of that philosophy may be for a future post.

But what if you enjoy doing something and the cost isn’t important to you?  Like mowing the lawn, you could get someone to do it cheaply, but you enjoy it.  You’re sacrificing time for cost and pleasure.  Ok, that still fits.

What about upgrading to Business Class when flying?  Sacrifice cost for pleasure.  There’s a lot of things you can sacrifice cost for extra comfort.  That’s a common one that fits well.

But the equation doesn’t work for everything.  There are some legitimate sources of tasty fast food, where it’s a balance of cheap, fast, and pleasurable.  So what’s the sacrifice there?  That’s a better fit for the Good/Fast/Cheap equation, where you can usually argue that you’re giving up quality for the others.

I guess we need some definition as to when to use Good/Fast/Cheap and when to use Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable.  It seems G/F/C applies to things you receive and C/F/P applies to things you experience.  Tangible and intangible.

Now I have a problem with Cheap when dealing with experience, because that has a negative connotation.  How about Economical?  That makes Fast stick out, but wow, that’s a hard one to replace.  I can’t think of any -able or -ible terms to fit in there.  That will have to wait.

Great.  I now have a physical and emotional tradeoff triangle for my analytical processes.

Gonna Be One Of Them Old People

Posted by on March 23, 2015 No comments

… with the leased telephone.

Verizon nags me non-stop about upgrading my Internet service so I can get faster speeds and a new router.  The thing is, I know why they want this.  They need to move on to a new standard for routers and until everyone switches, they’re pretty much stuck.

There’s an easy way to resolve it though.  Just offer me a hardware trade.  You want to get rid of the old router, so just give me a new router and we’ll call it even.  I have little need for more speed.  I got 60/60 in a speed test just now, but for $10 more a month, I can get 75/75.  Sorry, V, you gotta try harder than that.  I figure they’ll make the offer eventually.

I have mixed emotions about Verizon.  FIOS has been rock-solid and a dream come true.  I can’t complain about my bill either.  The first time, the contract was under my ex wife’s name for 2 years, then I changed it to my name and got another new user bonus for another 2-yr contract.  Then I worried about losing that special pricing in the next contract renewal.  You wouldn’t believe it.  My price went down.  Not a lot, maybe $5, but still.  Who ever heard of a utility bill going down?

No, my big beef with Verizon is their bundling.  I don’t watch TV, I don’t need a land line.  I have (and rent) one base-model cable box because I think I have to.  Nope, I just need Internet, but it’s more expensive to not get the 3-way bundle. Still, how can I complain when my rate is dropping?

The Efficiency Of Procrastination

Posted by on March 23, 2015 No comments

Today is a Monday, both literally and figuratively.  I left on Friday with something on my work plate and a clear plan as to what was needed when I came back in today.  Nothing went as planned.

The project I was working on was a final push on a task that had been dragging out for months and months.  It was an integration with another company. The dev on the other side and I were really dragging our feet on it.  But management was having no more of that, so we both got told to make it happen in a week.  I knew I didn’t have much to do in this, so I agreed right away.  That’s when I made my plan of what I needed to do.

I arrived this morning and got to work.  Preparing to do my initial smoke test, I fumbled around, because I hadn’t looked at the code in well over a month and wasn’t sure what steps needed performed for a successful service call.  After half an hour of research, I figured it out.  That is, I figured out it wasn’t complete.  In fact, it was fairly incomplete.  All the testing I’d done up to that point was manually faked.

So, I did what I normally do when I’m put up against the wall – I made a list of what must be done.  The list was short, but wasn’t pretty.  I had to get other people involved with some steps, so my “oversight” might be noticed.  And some was just some tedious coding.

Then, I wasted no time and got to work.  Within an hour, I had everything done that I could get done and now had to wait on someone else to do something for me.  And as I wait, I write this entry… (this isn’t procrastinating, btw)

I read a quote recently that was something like, “Procrastinators can make a 15 minute task last 8 hours and can do 8 hours of work in 15 minutes.”  Precisely.  I just did it.  Why didn’t I do it earlier?  It might have been the feeling that came over me today when I realized I wasn’t done.  Before I made the bullet list of work to do, I started thinking of what needed done and started second-guessing myself, wondering if that was really the best course of action.

It’s a problem I face regularly.  When you know so many different ways to accomplish something, you can have trouble choosing which one to do.  Everything has pros and cons, so you can talk yourself into (or out of) any choice you make.  So you enter what is termed analysis paralysis.  And you procrastinate, because if you make no decision, you haven’t made the wrong decision.

But, when it comes down to the wire, you have to make a choice and run with it.  And usually, you will find it is a workable solution.  If anything is horribly wrong with it, you can fix it then.

The Same And Different

Posted by on March 21, 2015 No comments

Last night, I got the strange urge to play the keyboard.  Although my posts make me sound like it’s something I do all the time or it’s something that I’m constantly re-inspiring myself to do, the truth is, I don’t play all that much.

So, when I sat down, I kind of bopped around wondering what I should play and if there was anything I could still remember.  Then it started coming back to me again.  And I played and I kept on playing.  As would be expected, my stamina wasn’t all that great and my accuracy on the notes was a little faulty, but for the most part, my hands went where they should have.

Today, I played a little more.  I guess my hands got a little sore from the workout last night because I couldn’t play as much.  But while I was playing, I did my little daydreaming about being a rock star (or some kind of star).  I thought about how my technique was crap and how I may get criticism for how “poorly” I play.

But then the realization dawned on me that some of the most innovative players were not formally trained and had a style of playing that was unconventional.  Why should I be any different.  In fact, I might say that it would require a personal technique in order to play in an unheard fashion.  And it would make it harder for someone to imitate you.  You would have your unique sound because it’s done with a playing style only you know.

And that naturally made me think outside the world of music at how having your own style for everything is important.  It’s not good to be exactly like the crowd, but you do need to have some “accessibility.”  I’ve heard a lot of music that doesn’t sit right with me and I’ve seen a lot of people that just don’t sit right with me as well.  Maybe people should strive to be unique and accessible.  Although lately, I think that some people are taking the individualism stuff a little too far.

And, as an off-topic aside, playing keyboards yesterday and today made a significant change in my typing: faster and more accurate.  I had been lamenting lately how bad my typing was becoming because I could barely type a sentence without having a typo.  I’d be constantly stopping and correcting things and it was slowing me down drastically.  I think I may have just found a solution for this.  That’s a happy discovery.

In Recognition

Posted by on March 19, 2015 No comments

There’s a job that is pretty well underrated in the modern age and it needs a little more promotion.  That job is: Lifeguard.  When you read that word, what’s the first image that came to mind?  A person sitting in a high chair beside a pool or on a high deck at the beach?  Just sitting there all day?  Maybe yelling at people every once in a while?  Sounds like an easy and/or boring job.  Anyone could do it, right?

If your lifeguard is not doing anything at your local swim area, be grateful.  That means you have a community that is educated in water skills and water safety.  But, there are many places where this is not the case.  In my area, where people come on vacation to go to the water, it’s painfully obvious that water skills don’t come naturally.  And that is why you need lifeguards.

A lifeguard is not just someone who likes to swim.  A lifeguard is not even just someone who can pull another person out of the water.  Lifeguard certification consists of many specific saving techniques – ones that EMTs and Paramedics might not even know.  There are precise ways to handle different emergency situations and skills that must be honed to perfection to avoid causing additional injury to a victim.  A lifeguard is an emergency first responder and is essentially an ambulance in the water.

There is another element of being a lifeguard that elevates them above EMTs. (You wouldn’t think this to be the case, but it is.)  When an ambulance is called and an EMT is sent to an accident scene, the damage is already done.  The EMT can only keep things from getting worse.  In the role of lifeguard, there is the opportunity to stop an accident from even happening in the first place.  Lifeguards are trained to identify signs of distress and trouble and can respond before anything bad happens.  Of course, this can be completely underappreciated, since the person being saved wasn’t in desperate need of assistance yet.

So the specialized skills of a lifeguard are beyond those of an EMT because an EMT is too late to the scene to help.  If that isn’t impressive enough, consider what “late” means to a lifeguard: 20 seconds.  Can you look out into a crowd of people, identify someone having problems and get to them in 20 seconds?  And if you think that any good swimmer could be a substitute for a certified lifeguard, consider some of these.

Could you save a a struggling person without being drowned yourself?  The victim isn’t trying to kill you and it’s nothing personal, it’s just self-preservation.  Could you save a person with an injury without causing further injury?  What if it was the neck?  What if it was the spine?  How long can you do CPR?  You don’t stop until the ambulance gets there.  How are you with heat?  You’re in the sun for a long time.

Lifeguards are not beach bums and they are not Baywatch.  They are trained professionals who save lives when needed and prevent bad situations from becoming disasters.  They will be the ones who are first on the scene for emergency assistance, whether for cuts, broken bones, jellyfish stings, choking or even drowning.  You may never see one in action, for which you should be grateful, but don’t discount the level of safety they provide.

I am almost always fascinated by trade magazines, because they illustrate how serious and passionate people are about their individual profession.  For example, at my first jobs working at pizza shops, the store would have a subscription to Pizza Today.  Yes, there was plenty going on in that industry, with techniques and technology to keep up on.  So, check out Aquatics Intl and get an appreciation of a lifeguard’s world.  They take it seriously and there is constant education and training happening there as well.

Things To Do Alone: Stop Being Alone

Posted by on March 19, 2015 No comments

http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/relationships/no-date-no-problem-10-things-to-do-alone/ss-AA8HJ6s

In the “articles that didn’t need to be written” category, as well as the “articles that make no sense” category, I came across this one.  There have been lots of articles written about introverts lately, trying to educate others as to how introverts behave and why they behave that way.  So I assumed that this article was written with the same consideration.  Nope.

Here’s a summary of the suggestions for things to do alone:

  1. Go to a bar
  2. Go to a wedding
  3. Go to a concert
  4. Do a DIY project at home
  5. Go to a restaurant or café
  6. Go to local stores
  7. Go on a vacation
  8. Go to school
  9. Go to the movies

First off, the fact that masturbation didn’t make the list is a major oversight and destroys the author’s credibility.  That would be the #1 thing to do while alone.

Jokes aside, the author doesn’t seem to know what the word “alone” means.  All but one suggestion involves going out to where people are, many times with the intention of meeting new people.  That’s not being alone.  The article title should be “10 things to do alone when you don’t want to be alone”.

This article was an easy target, but there are becoming more and more easy targets every day.  Another alarming trend I am seeing is grammatical errors in news stories.  Things like missing words or misspelled words (probably via autocorrect).  In print media, there used to be a position called “editor”, whose role it was to read and correct all stories before publishing.  The editor would do normal proofreading, but would also manage the style and tone of the story.  When you understand how involved this could be, you gain a greater respect for the editor role.

But in the modern world of self-publishing, immediate deadline, 24-hour news, the editor role seems to be obsolete.  Editors would be more suited for weekly magazines like Time or Newsweek where the articles would be a more in-depth retrospective of events.  It’s kind of sad to me.

So what’s my excuse when I have a spelling mistake or a grammatical error?  Well, I don’t have an editor.  I do a re-read of my posts usually, sometimes a couple of times.  But we know how easy the brain can skip over double words or can mysteriously fill in missing words when you know what’s coming next.

Time and Money and Pots and Trees

Posted by on March 18, 2015 No comments

So the last few months have been spent in what I’ve been calling “austerity.”  The trick is, you give something a somewhat clever name and you will get more enticed to see it succeed.

But the end result has been positive.  Prior to starting this exercise, I was blowing my budget on my credit card spending.  Usually, that’s not bad because the budget isn’t the full amount I have available.  Then I started blowing through that buffer and had to start drawing from savings.  That wasn’t as bad as it could be because I had some silent transfers into the savings account.  But it was bad.  My savings account balance was about cut in half and I began to get worried.

However, at the same time, I paid off the car loan and did a refinance on my second mortgage, so that was two monthly payments that immediately went into savings.  Then I went hard-core and eliminated all extra spending except for food and gas.  That has been very productive.  I’ve been slowly draining my savings account for probably a couple of years now, and even with the replenishment I’ve been doing lately, it’s still at only 50% of its peak value.

Right now, I can see the future balance forecasts and they look great.  I look at the amounts being deposited and I think, “I could be buying (this gadget) every paycheck with that money.”  And somehow, that really puts things in a sad perspective.  Every paycheck, I could be buying some neat new toy.  One thing, for all that money.  That makes it seem like I’m not saving that much at all.  Then you all all those together and it’s like, “that’s really not a lot of money at all.”

Wait a minute.  I had a spending problem where I persuaded myself that I wasn’t spending a lot of money, now I have a savings problem where I feel like I’m not saving a lot of money.  What a mental mess this is.  So let’s look at it from another perspective.

They say you should have 6 (used to be 1, then 3, now 6) months worth of income saved for emergencies.  So right now, I’m at almost 3 months. To get to 6 months savings, it’s going to take maybe another 4-5 months of my current effort.  What’s that say?  I’m saving 33% of my pay by “hiding money” and another 14% in voluntary savings.  My fixed expenses are about 25% of my net pay a month.  Almost half my pay is being saved.  I shouldn’t feel bad about that at all.

So why do I feel bad?  Is it the watched pot never boiling?  Is it a case where I can’t see the forest for the trees?  Is it a psychosis like washing your hands over and over and never believing they’re clean?  That’s what I’m worried about.  I have to keep reminding myself things are good and I’m on track.  But does that mean I can give myself permission to spend?  And then what?  Will I fall back into my over-spending habits?  I have a big list of things I want.  I don’t need any of them.

We’ll revisit this in a couple of months.

Thanks For Your Opinion

Posted by on March 18, 2015 No comments

I’ve been saying 2015 is going to be a great year.  It’s a year I’m going to focus on me and not get involved with outside projects like helping other people or starting businesses, or committing to volunteer to a group.  Doesn’t that sound selfish?

Well, I believe everyone needs to have a period of time to reflect and recharge.  Putting out energy and effort all the time is very difficult and draining, especially for an introvert. (And what’s up with all the recent articles on introverts, anyway?)

While I spend this time building myself back up, I also want to take the time and look at myself and others and decide what needs changing.  One of the things that I’ve really gotten irritated with is people’s tendency to state opinion as fact.  And if they’re not stating it as fact, then they’re stating it as an absolute.  If it’s not an absolute, then it’s being stated as a benchmark.  You get what I’m saying.  “This product will make your life easier.”  If not that, then, “This product is the best.”  And if not that that, then, “If you’re not using this product, then you’re not getting any benefit.”

Sounds like Marketing 101, right?  So why try to fight that?  I’m sure I do it on occasion, too.  But that’s something I want to change.  The tone of people when they make statements like that is exclusionary.  What they are saying, to a degree, is, “I use this (or do this, or have this, or even want this), and if you don’t as well, you are inferior.”  Notice that it can actually be used against people when you aren’t even in the group, just that you want to be in the group is enough.

What’s the alternative?  First, understand that your choice is always a personal opinion.  Guard your statement like, “In my opinion, this product is the best.” or “For my needs, this product works best.”  You are allowing the other person to disagree without either of you losing face. Now if the other person responds with a personal attack like, “that’s because you’re stupid,” well, what can you do?  You know what you’re dealing with.

Next, realize that there are many ways of accomplishing the same result. A product or service or lifestyle or anything else is made up of a bunch of smaller parts.  A person’s choice may still satisfy the individual needs even if the whole product is different.  In summary, this is the “that’s not important to me” factor that no one ever considers when making broad opinion-based statements.  Of course, counter-arguments can devolve into “If that’s not important to you, then you don’t know anything about this.”

Understanding and remembering these points is what I want to work on this year.  I don’t want to be that person, that fanboy, that pretentious jerk, that know-it-all.  I want to be inclusive, not exclusive.  Accept people’s choice and don’t insult them for it.  Recognize that your choice may be better-suited (not better) and if so, promote the details that make it better-suited (not better) for that person.  Understand that you don’t know what is unimportant to others and don’t insist they make it important.

A good example I’ve mentioned before is the motorcycling community.  Some people are like “If you don’t ride a Harley, you’re nothing” and others are like, “As long as you’re on two wheels (or three in some cases), you’re cool.”  Exclusive vs. inclusive.  And at the end of the day, we’re all just people.